I just finished reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury this afternoon. Not bad. It's strangely similar to many of the books I had to study at school, which went under the guise of literature.
What I was most intrigued by, though, was the "old-sf" vibe. You know, science fiction written in the 50s and 60s where you can imagine the characters looking like people out of an old commercial. Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Isaac Asimov, etc.
So while I was thinking about what makes old science fiction feel old, I realized - computers and computer networks. Ever since the late 70s and early 80s there has been hardly any (popular) science fiction that doesn't include a computer network of some sort. Everybody is interconnected, much like today. Before then, most of the books written feature some futuristic technology, but the idea of being connected is not there. It's a phenomenon that nobody had even thought of until it happened. And maybe that's what makes older science fiction slightly less enjoyable. You read it and think it's not realistic, it's not credible, because we can no longer imagine a world where this interconnection is not there.
Maybe that's why, to me, books written since Neuromancer seem so much more compelling.
Anyway, that's my random thought for today. If you follow my sidebar, you'll have noticed I haven't even let the corpse of 451 Fahrenheit cool before starting on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I've read the first chapter and I think I'm going to like it. The problem is that even though so far the mood isn't exactly like Blade Runner, I can only picture Deckard as looking like Harrison Ford. :) Hopefully that won't be a problem...
Posted by Dave at July 16, 2003 01:05 AM